8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Japan + Tsunami and Alerts

^
That quote is hilarious. 100% safe except for unseen circumstances? Like, I dunno, an 8.9 scale earthquake?
And protected except for against unforeseen terrorist attacks! So remember guys, its all cool as long as the terrorists give us a call beforehand to announce they're attacking our nuclear power plants.

When you consider all of our backup cooling processes, containment vessels, and contingency plans, you realize that, barring the fact that all of those safety measures could be wiped away in an instant by a natural disaster or electrical error, our reactors are indestructible."

The humor is quite dark here.

Anyway, F'UCK YEAH JAPAN moment.

Temperatures in the fuel ponds in Units 5 & 6 have been brought down from 60 Celsius to around 30. It is said to be under perfect conditions at 25 Celsius.
This was achieved with the recovery of the residual heat removal system in those two units.

Also, calling bullpomegranate on the earlier 4000 millisieverts measurements.

An extended operation to refill the fuel pond took place at unit 3, with the Hyper Rescue crew spraying for over 13 hours. Radiation levels 500 metres north of the reactor showed a decrease from 3.44 millisieverts per hour to 2.75 millisieverts per hour, indicating a measure of success in refilling the pond.

And this, probably over-due a statement, however true it might be.

Despite contradictory comments by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to US politicians and media, most observers in nuclear industry and regulation consider the measures taken by Japanese authorities to be prudent.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Sta...03111.html

Common pool:

In addition to pools in each of the plant's reactor buildings, there is another facility -- the Common Use Spent Fuel Pool -- where spent fuel is stored after cooling at least 18 months in the reactor buildings. This fuel is much cooler than the assemblies stored in the reactor buildings. Japanese authorities have confirmed that fuel assemblies there are fully covered by water, and the temperature was 57 ˚C as of 20 March, 00:00 UTC.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsun...ate01.html